Tomorrow Is Independence Day
It's more complicated than I ever believed! Last night I was so tired I went to sleep at about 8PM.
This something I recorded at 1:40 AM today. I had just woken with a sort of revelation, ...
See David Lynch's Weather Report.
Here's an E-mail I sent to my father this afternoon:
Hi dad, Thanks! That's great detail. I would like a bit more though! At Stauch Vorster you worked in PE on the 20th floor of what was then the tallest building in the city, wasn't it? I remember riding the lift up there, and whilst you were renovating 4 Muir Rd in Mill Park I had a terrible fever once, and in that fever your building works at home, and your office building and a kennels we once left Simba in in PE all featured together in my feverish nightmare, which I still remember. It was my first experience of an altered state of consciousness.
I would also like to more about Rhodesia in 1965. You were in the Rhodesian Air Force and you got a UDI medal that Ian Smith handed out after the event. Where you also in the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, before UDI? You were in the photographic section, you did photogrammetry and I remember you telling me you measured land contours off of stereoscopic photos. You had an anecdote about a guy who went away and when he came back his friends had reassembled his mini in his room. You worked with a guy called Ozzy, you said because his surname was Osbourne. I found a video called Pride of Eagles, made "in the seventies" about the Rhodesian Air Force, and there is a guy called Ozzy in the survey division. Here's the video link if you ever get the chance to watch it.
The history of UDI is complicated. After the Lancaster House talks Zimbabwe Rhodesia was declared part of the commonwealth and it was as if, legally, UDI never happened. I have looked into the diplomatic negotiations involving Kissinger and the Americans and the motivations for the sanctions in the 70s were very involved with US domestic politics. It's a very interesting story. I am interested because I was born in Salisbury in 1966 in a country that was at that time independent and the economy was actually more closely alligned with the US economy, principally because Rhodesia was at that time producing 75% of the world's commercial tabacco. It was mostly bought by Phillip Morris, an American company who ended up paying billions in fines as a result of a class action lawsuit against it for deliberately ignoring evidence that smoking causes lung cancer. The other curious part of the agricultural history was that the tobacco production recovered to pre-war levels within only a few years of the Lancaster House agreements. Despite families like the Purdens losing their farms and ending up in New Zealand owning just one cow! Another curious fact is the George H.W. Bush had a meeting with Robert Mugabe whilst he (Bush!) was director of, or working for Central Intelligence, in the seventies! So the stories about ZANU/ZAPU and their Cuban/Soviet support were not entirely straightforward.
Please forward this to Jebs and maybe talk about it together. I want to know about your lives, especially growing up with Peter Jarvis near Fort Victoria and that trip to Mozambique we all made with (the Purdens?) and Jebs and Eve and Debbie and Tracy. You caught a barracuda. What was the name of the place south of Lorenzo Marques where that lagoon was? Did someone lose their Land Rover when the tide came in?
Love
Ian
He was reluctant to talk about Rhodesia in his reply. He said only "I only received a General Service medal. Everyone in service got one! ... Peter Jarvis lived then in Salisbury but did visit us in Fort Victoria."
Stand fast Craigellachie ... or not. See the video description:
Some of the more knowledgeable amongst you may know that this particular tune is not the Clan song of Clan Grant. However for reasons currently out of control I have been unable to put an adequate version of their song; "Stand fast Craigellachie". Nevertheless, in an attempt to do justice to that Ancient Clan, I have made a tune in honour of the Clan seat; Castle Grant.
Castle Grant in Granton-on-spey:
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The Grant clan and the Jacobite Rebellions:
See Eleanor Morton on Why People Visit Loch Ness, ... and The Plate Tec[h?!]tonics of The Great Glen. When I first saw Glenmoriston with Karen Park in around 1984 or thereabouts, a few days after getting my driver's licence, it triggered what William Irwin Thompson would call my Celtic radar. It was Karen who told me afterwards that that glen was the home of clan Grant.
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The "spiral of abuse" works at many levels and they all interact, so genuine resolution is an incredibly complex process, and cults don't necessary help! See Lana Del Rey and Suzanne Vega and Norma Michel - Lo Que No Puedes Ver.
Streets of Fire - Nowhere Fast
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Streets of Fire - Tonight is What It Means to Be Young
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Chicago? Well that's where Streets of Fire is set, and where the movie Source Code ends, in Grant Park, if I'm not mistaken.
Ulysses S. Grant Cottage in the Adirondacks in NewYork:
Noble Dawson - General Grant's "Write Hand Man"
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Sharon Den Adel Interviewing Lana Del Rey (see also Devizes To Westminster? In particular the last two songs, Sting's The Shape of my Heart and Within Temptation's The Whole World is Watching.)
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